A Letter to My Sixteen Year Old Self: 52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose

Dear 16 Year Old Kelly, 

Happy Birthday! You are 16 today and excited to be heading out to take that drivers test. While you are  filled with such excitement slow down and enjoy because in a few short weeks you will have totaled the car and be back to riding the bus. While it will seem like the end of world, and your parents will be disappointed its actually the best thing that could have happened to you. It opened your eyes early to realize you aren't invincible and for the next 10 years you will be an excellent driver.

Continue enjoying high school, forget about the guys and don't let the pressure of good grades and being SO involved get you down, keep playing volleyball and do your best in school. While you're not at the top of your class don't worry cause you will pick it up and college and get this, you will rock college Calculus! Going back to volleyball, enjoy every game and play your heart out because you can't even fathom how much you will miss it. Enjoy your best friends now because they will become a distant memory every year, and you only see or hear from them every so often.

While your dad drives you absolutely crazy, enjoy him now because in just a few years he will be diagnosed with MS and you slowly lose the dad he always was. He's even harder to get along with and even though you live miles apart he is barely in your life.

Your mom on the other hand continues to stay your best friend! You will take trips together, shop, go out to eat and even though it wasn't in her plan she is able to stay at home with your children which is a gift beyond belief. You talk to her and see her (almost) everyday! Whenever your having a bad day she is always there to pick you up, you will never be able to thank her enough so start now!

Your gut is right when you think the guy sweeping popcorn up at the movie theatre is right for you, because he is and he's the best husband you could ever ask for you. He will stand by your side and support your every decision no matter what. Don't get me wrong there are going to be tough times, in fact you will fight a lot over the years you spend at pharmacy school (long distance is never easy). Thats right I said it! You will be accepted to pharmacy school and meet some of your best friends there.  I'm telling you now enjoy pharmacy school (every one there is an over achiever) you will always feel the need to study more and do better but have fun too! You live in Erie, go out to eat, head to the mall, and get pedicures because working in the real world is way less fun then school. TRUST ME!

You will move back home and get an adorable duplex with Travis as you prepare for your pharmacy boards and wedding. Enjoy this time it goes by so fast and while you know you want to have a baby right away, forget that idea! It will come at its own time and its not the same as yours! As you begin your new career in retail pharmacy it will seem like a nightmare that you will never survive but stick with it cause in a few short years your dream job will arrive and you couldn't be happier.


Finally you will become pregnant and it will be the best time of your life or so you think, until SHE arrives. Can you believe it? You will finally be holding the baby girl you have always dreamed of, she is perfect, sweet and born with a full head of hair. You will name her Noelle...

This is what life is made of and this is where your life really begins....

I can't believe its been 10 years, each year went by so fast and they are picking up each year with speed.

Just enjoy every day, life is too short!


Love,

Your 26 year old self

September 18th 2010, 3 years later...

I can't believe that it has been 3 YEARS since we were rocking the walls of the Antler Club! I never thought I would be SO lucky to have the amazing husband that I do. He is so supportive of EVERY decision I make and stands behind me 100%, he works hard so that I can stay home more, he loves me even on my worst days when I'm all kinds of crazy and he spends almost all of his time making sure Noelle and I are well taken care of. I'm so grateful that he is in my life.

 It's crazy to look back on our journey and see how far we have come over the years. We have seen so many amazing places, bought a house, switched jobs, and had a beautiful daughter.


 Recapping some of our major milestones over the last three years include:

2010 we traveled to Antigua, 2011 came Germany to visit my brother, 2012 and 2013 came two wonderful trips to Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks. We are so lucky to have been able to travel this far and can't wait to take Noelle on some amazing journeys!

2012 was a BIG year for us, we found out we were expecting our first baby and we welcomed Noelle Katherine into the world on November 14th.

2013 I made a very easy decision to leave my job at large retail chain and work for an independent pharmacy close to home and only 27 hours a week. This has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined being able to stay home with our children half of the week! We also bought our house in March and have spent the last couple months making it our home.


I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for our family! My goals over the next year include putting on an addition to our house so we have the bedroom space for the children we want! (Our house is everything we have ever wanted but the only downfall was that it was only 2 bedrooms, so we are adding 2 more bedrooms on hopefully this November) Continue crafting with my hubby, as we have had SO much working on these home projects together. Enjoy watching Noelle turn into the crazy toddler I'm sure she will become!

We did spend a wonderful evening in Pittsburgh seeing The Lion King on Broadway! It was awesome and so entertaining to see, although we spent a lot of the time missing our little one.

I just want to do a quick recap of our ONE year anniversary. I came home from a long day of work to find this...

This was 365 paper hearts (one for each day that we have been married) that were taped to the ceiling, each with a reason on why he loved me. He hand cut and wrote on EVERY heart. Each reason was so sweet, he had things written down that I never thought he payed attention too. It really took me back to realize the time, effort, and thought he put into making our anniversary so special. 

Trendy Tot Tuesday

 

 

 

 

 

So...I linked up for Trendy Tot Tuesday but Im a couple days late posting just because of the craziness this week! My husband and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary by going to The Lion King on Broadway! (Blog post coming soon on that! ) Then I picked up an extra shift on Wednesday at the hospital and here I am Thursday at work! This is just a quick glance at Noelle's trendy outfit she wore when we went to meet Missy! (Who will be watching her one day a week for me) 

Pink Vest: Hand me down Crazy 8

Jeans: Baby Gap

Floral onesie: Baby Gap

Sparkly Silver shoes: Hand me down Stride rite 

Hair bows: Carters 

She is so sweet now a days and just melts my heart! 

Noelle: 10 Months...

Dear Noelle,

 It amazes me how every four weeks you seem to come leaps and bounds on what you are able to accomplish. We have had such a slow start with you from the beginning when it comes to food and how you have progressed but finally in the last couple of weeks you are starting to get the hang of it. Since I'm a breastfeeding mama you had a heck of a time learning to use a bottle and in fact it wasn't until almost month 6 where you finally accepted the whole bottle thing. Then at 6 months as you progressed to solids you really wanted nothing to do with purees and after a couple of months now you will gobble them up. Lately we have been working with you on eating small bites of food such as toast fruit, veggies and noodles but you all you seem to want is the purees, but in the last week or so you finally have started eating more and more solids which is great!

 As far as your ability to move you are EVERYWHERE! You can crawl so fast, pull up on anything, climb on boxes, and you have just started to pull up and stand by yourself without holding on! It wont be long till your running on your own two feet! I really cant believe we only have 2 months left until your FIRST birthday. I have said it before and will say it again you have been such a JOY in our lives and we don't know what we would do without you! 

 

Five on Friday!

Five on Friday Hope everyone is as excited for the weekend as I am! As one of my favorites, I'm linking up with bloggers Darci, April, Christina and Natasha for my FIVE ON FRIDAY!

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 Even though the weekend is upon us my husband is having his wisdom teeth out today which means I will most likely be catering to him with soft foods and some pain meds while he recovers. I guess this gives us a reason to snuggle up on the couch and watch football! Go Steelers!

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 My baby girl will be 10 months this weekend! DOUBLE DIGITS! So stay tuned for adorable 10 month photo and update coming this weekend!

 

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Warning: NERD ALERT! I'm so excited that Financial Peace University has come my church and we will be attending class every Sunday night for the next 8 weeks! This may seem so silly, we are financially sound but I just believe you can never learn to much about money and how it can always be working for you! Not to mention as a pharmacist I'm still diligently working on those student loans! I will continue to posts blogs about the class and my thoughts on each lesson!

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Tomato sauce! Thanks to our dear neighbors we have been given a ginormous box of tomatoes that were going to go bad. We were able to salvage them and with the help of the Vitamix, make beautiful tomato basil sauce to put in the freezer to use all winter long. Mhmm....

 {five}

 Looking for some AWESOME organizational tips? Go check out Samantha at Happily a Housewife for her latest and greatest project of Home Management Printable's they are wonderful!

What being a mom looks like: 52 Week of Blogging with a Purpose

I absolutely love Becky's blog and while I'm at the end of the cut off for the week I have decided to link up with her 52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose and today's topic: What being a mom looks like.

Simply stated:

Being a mom looks like a hot mess and queen of the world. While there are days you can barely pull yourself together, get off the couch, or just feed your child cause you were up all night, there are also  days where you feel like a super hero. You have accomplished your to-do lists, loved up your little, cooked dinner and managed to do it all while feeling good.

Being a mom looks like a GPS unit. Not a day goes by where I'm not searching for a toy, outfit, shoes, or some other baby paraphernalia. I always ( and still do ) joke about my mom being able to find anything that was lost. We could have all searched the house and the only person who could ever find it  was my mom. I think it's a gift God has given us to keep our sanity.

Being a mom looks like a short order chef, nurse, teacher, disciplinarian, but most importantly a best friend. I enjoy ALMOST everything thats comes with being a mom but nothing makes me happier than having her as a best friend at the end of the day. She can make any worry go away, any fear subside, and any joy THAT much greater.

Being a mom looks like the best thing in the entire world. Simply stated. It brings out our worst, best, weakest and strongest moments. It makes you feel like rock bottom and top of the world.

It its the best look out there...

Kelly Erin

Sandbridge 2013

Well we have finally made it back from Virginia Beach and I forgot to take my computer with me so I'm falling behind on the blog and have LOTS I want to catch up on!  It was a trip of firsts for us when it came to this vacation. 

The first time my mom went along, the first we took our dog and our first trip with a baby. It was a little hectic to say the least...

Late Thursday evening I got a call from my mom letting me know she had drove herself to the ER, she was then admitted for an infection. This was not how we intended to start off our vacation. We made sure she was ok before we decided to still  pack up friday night and headed to the beach with our dog Ryleigh and Noelle. Overall we had a smooth trip down and my mom was able to recover quickly enough and met us down there on Monday. It took us almost the entire week to figure out what routine would work for us with both dog and baby on board and by the time we had all the kinks worked out it was time to head back home :(

Some of the things that went astray included my mom getting hospitalized prior to the trip, once my mom got down there Macy (her puppy) scratched Noelle's face, our dinner plans all seemed to fall through, my mom got vertigo and spent an entire day in bed, Noelle seemed to be teething and was extra cranky and tired and the list goes on and on. It was probably the first time ever that Travis and I wanted to head home. We are hoping future trips only get easier...

Despite the chaos though , there were lots of enjoyable moments along the way and heres a peek of what our week looked like...

Noelle 9 & 1/2 months 

We have so many goals, projects and ideas that we have wanted to accomplish by the end of the year but the months are flying by. I'm hoping to do one of my next posts on the goals we have for September and the end of the year! In fact how is it ALREADY September? In no time I will have a 1 year old...

Kelly Erin